During the past fifteen years, Internet-based retailing has evolved from an infrequently used curiosity to an enormous, international marketplace. Internet-based retailing interfaces and virtual storefronts now provide secure, interactive shopping facilities to home customers, small business customers, and large-scale organizations and businesses. As the variety of products retailed through Internet-based retailing interfaces has grown, and as security requirements have increased, Internet-based retailing interfaces have correspondingly grown more complex and sophisticated. However, despite the enormous amount of time and resources expended by Internet-based retailers to develop and refine Internet-based retailing interfaces, a number of deficiencies remain. Embodiments of the current invention are related to retailing systems that provide a virtual or hybrid retailing interface between remote customers, interconnected with the retailing system through various communications interfaces, and multiple, remote vendors and manufacturers of particular products and product categories. Embodiments of the present invention are discussed, below, within the context of retailing printed labels, but may be used in developing and maintaining virtual and hybrid retailing interfaces for retailing a variety of different products and services provided by different types of vendors to a variety of different types of customers and users.
Printed labels have myriad different uses in modern societies, from political advertising and personal opinion display, including bumper stickers and various types of placards and advertising, to informational labels used for display and merchandizing of products, for display of instructions and directions for use of products, for display of warnings, and for many other uses. FIG. 1 shows an exemplary printed label. The printed label 100 features printed textural information 102 that may be printed in various different font sizes, colors, and styles on various different types of backgrounds. Printed labels may additionally include graphics, images, textured features, such as Braille lettering for visually impaired people, and other such non-textural information. Printed labels normally comprise a substrate, such as paper, various types of polymer films, metal foils, and other such materials, and may additionally comprise one or more additional layers, including clear, plastic weather-resilient finishes, backing layers, adhesives, and removable, non-stick backings to protect the adhesive until the printed label is used. Printed labels may feature reflective substrates, finishes, or coatings, various non-standard shapes and cutouts, and other features and characteristics by which printed labels may be customized for particular uses. Certain printed labels may conform to various standards and requirements, such as Underwriters Laboratories Recognition or CE Certification, and labels used for direct application to food products, cosmetics and drugs, or to windshields of motor vehicles. Although printed labels are a familiar and seemingly simple means for information display, there are many different types of printed labels, each type of printed label configurable to display an enormous variety of different types of information, and there are correspondingly many different parameters associated with printed labels used to describe or specify each different printed label.
FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary menu-based interface that may be used to collect a sufficient number of parameters to characterize a particular printed label through a printed-label-ordering interface. A top-level menu 202 displays ten different parameter categories. Selection of any of the top-level parameter categories results in display of one or more additional menus related to the top-level parameter category. For example, when the top-level category “material” 204 is selected, a second level material menu 206 is displayed to allow for specification of a general type of material desired for a particular printed label. The second level menu 206 displays three different categories of application: (1) outdoor applications; (2) indoor applications; and (3) special applications, each application associated with potential materials that can be used in the application. Special applications may include particular application environments requiring special label materials, such as information labels used within fume hoods designed to contain caustic and reactive chemical substances, or labels placed on surfaces routinely exposed to petroleum products. When the category “outdoor application” 208 is selected from the second level menu 206, a third level menu is displayed 210 to allow a customer to select features of the printed label, the features applicable to printed labels used in the general application selected in the second level menu 206. For example, selection of the third level category “finish” 212 results in display of a fourth-level menu 214 from which a particular type of finish for the label can be selected, appropriate for the application selected from the second level menu. As another example, selection of the third level category “composition” 213 results in display of a fourth-level menu 216 from which a customer can select the type of substrate for the label. Additional top-level parameter categories include: type, color, graphics, size, shape, shipping address, a “needed by” category, quantity, and many various different standards or requirements for the label. FIG. 2 also shows second-level menus 218 and 220 displayed as a result of selection of the top-level-menu categories “needed by” 222 and “standard/requirements” 224, respectively.
FIG. 2 shows one hypothetical, printed-level-specification system that may be used in an Internet-based printed-label virtual store. However, there are an essentially limitless number of different printed-label specification interfaces and systems that may be created in order to allow customers to specify printed labels. For example, many different, alternative categories of parameters may be employed in differently, hierarchically organized sets of menus and forms. In other printed-label specification interfaces, fewer menus may be employed, and all relevant parameters and other input may be collected from a single displayed page or a few displayed pages. In certain systems, a particular printed label may be specified using an unformatted character string, which is then parsed by a printed-label-specification system to determine a type of printed label desired by a customer, with possible further dialog or other interaction with a customer employed to refine a specification. In other systems, a customer may be required to manually scan a catalog of printed-label types, and to choose a printed-label identifier from the catalog to specify the type of printed label desired. The interface or system employed for specifying printed labels may also depend on the types of printed labels sold by a particular printed-label vendor, or on the capabilities and technologies of a particular vendor. In general, the problem of retailing printed labels is more complex than that of retailing already designed and mass produced products and standard services, because printed-labels are generally designed by the customer, prior to ordering by the customer, and each printed-label order is often unique for a specific customer. While it might seem desirable for printed-label vendors to establish and use a common, static, universal printed-label-specification interface and system, in order to standardize specification and description of printed labels, such an interface and system would be both impractical and undesirable due to the enormous number of different types of printed labels, the need for ad hoc design of printed labels by customers, and the ever-changing capabilities and technologies wielded by different printed-label vendors, and the need for vendors to differentiate themselves in various marketplaces. However, as discussed in subsequent sections, the problems associated with the large number of print-label vendor interfaces are particularly difficult for virtual or hybrid retailing systems. Retailers, retailing system designers, manufacturers, and vendors, and, ultimately, customers that use retailing systems have recognized the need for more efficient systems and methods for retailing printed-labels, and other products with complex specification and descriptions.